...
I know, right? This tiny country thing never gets old. Actually, I guess it wouldn't be that rare for a class from Washington or Michigan to make a trip up to Canada, or even for people from California to...
Never mind. That isn't the point. The point will be this: here is the story of our field trip to the Scladina cave in Belgium. And by our I mean Adam, Chris, myself, and the other lovely people from our Human Evolution class.
Transportation story:
Depart at 6:45AM
30 minute tram ride to Centraal station
Find the train
2.5 hour train ride to Maastricht:
Can you find it?
1.5 hour bus ride to Sclayn, Belgium, site of the Scladina Cave.
(The tiny little place isn't on very many maps. We were east of Namur).
The trip down there was pretty uneventful and mostly just took a long time. Thankfully when we arrived, it was time for lunch, and we were treated to some fine Belgian hospitality! Our lunch consisted of giant baguettes with jambon et fromage (they speak French there, you know!), beer and other beverages to go around (beer on a field trip?! Oh yes), and about an hour in which to eat everything. If you ask me, not a bad way to spend your lunch hour after a morning of sitting on a tram/train/bus.
Then it was time for a lecture about the history of the cave. Archaeologists have been excavating there for 30 years now (wow!), the most important thing they've found in the cave was a neanderthal jaw (cool!), and about 98% of all the bones/teeth/what-have-you that they find in the cave are fossils of the cave bear:
(yikes!)
Finally, it was time to go up to the cave!
We walked up some stairs in the side of a cliff:
The view from the top:
Our guide, Dominic, giving us a bit of a peptalk before going in:
Then, tada! We are in the cave! Watch out for the treacherous walkways:
Ooh, stalactites!
Excavations going on down below:
We saw things sticking out of the dirt (excuse me - sediment) everywhere -- teeth, ribs, tiny little mouse bones. Dominic said the archaologists only remove items when they have the time to catalog everything correctly, including the layers of sediment, so many things are sitting there waiting to be "found." Look, a tooth! If it were from a neanderthal, we'd be famous right now. Probably only from a cave bear :(
Dominic sheds light on another important cave topic:
And, yes, I was really there:
We emerged from the cave enlightened and in one piece (the cave didn't do so well, though; a few rocks fell victim to a wayward backpack. Dominic lamented the lost stratigraphy for a moment but then was fine). We had time for a quick group shot before it was back on the bus!
Can you find anyone you recognize?
Then it was:
1.5 hour bus ride
2.5 hour train ride
30 minute tram ride
And like that, we were back at the wonderful VU by 7:30PM, just in time to make the end of STNL class and back into the normal swing of things.
But for a few hours, we were in Belgium, and it was wonderful...
I'm definitely going back!
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